'Is it the Weather?'

32 Pages Posted: 21 Sep 2005 Last revised: 19 Dec 2009

See all articles by Ben Jacobsen

Ben Jacobsen

Tilburg University - TIAS School for Business and Society; Massey University

Wessel Marquering

Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) - Department of Financial Management

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: March 2004, 12

Abstract

We show that results in the recent strand of the literature that tries to explain stock returns by weather induced mood shifts of investors might be data-driven inference. More specifically, we consider two recent studies (Kamstra, Kramer and Levi, 2003a and Cao and Wei, 2004) that claim that a seasonal anomaly in stock returns is caused by mood changes of investors due to lack of daylight and temperature variations, respectively. We confirm earlier results in the literature that there is indeed a strong seasonal effect in stock returns in many countries: stock market returns tend to be significantly lower during summer and fall months than during winter and spring months. However, we also show that at best, these two studies offer two of many possible explanations for the observed seasonal effect. As an illustration we link ice cream production and airline travel to the stock market seasonality using similar reasoning. Our results suggest that without any further evidence the correlation between weather variables and stock returns might be spurious and the conclusion that weather affects stock returns through mood changes of investors is premature.

Keywords: stock market seasonality, sell in May, seasonal affective disorder, temperature, spurious correlations

JEL Classification: M, G3, G11, G14

Suggested Citation

Jacobsen, Ben and Marquering, Wessel A., 'Is it the Weather?' (March 2004, 12). ERIM Report Series Reference No. ERS-2004-100-F&A, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=636811

Ben Jacobsen

Tilburg University - TIAS School for Business and Society ( email )

Warandelaan 2
TIAS Building
Tilburg, Noord Brabant 5037 AB
Netherlands

Massey University ( email )

Auckland
New Zealand

Wessel A. Marquering (Contact Author)

Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) - Department of Financial Management ( email )

P.O. Box 1738
F4-26
Rotterdam 3000 DR
Netherlands
+31 10 408 2786 (Phone)
+31 10 408 9017 (Fax)

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
532
Abstract Views
5,088
Rank
23,234
PlumX Metrics